Splicing is utilized in many situations to efficiently couple together optical fibers. In some situations these fibers are ribbonized into groups of fibers and mass spliced. In general, the term “mass splice” refers to the use of a splicing machine to splice together multiple (such as in some cases 12) pairs of optical fibers. Alternatively, single element splicing of non-ribbonized optical fibers may be utilized.
Many known splice trays are designed to accommodate up to 12 mass splices. The splice trays generally house the splices and protect the bend radius of the fibers to minimize attenuation within the fibers, while also providing adequate protection so that the fibers may be installed for significant lengths of time (such as on the order of 25 years) and maintain integrity and reusability. Such splice trays must also accommodate excess fiber so that if there is a problem when splicing there is slack available to have multiple attempts at splicing. One typical overlength storage requirement is 1.5 meters of fiber per cable.
The use of traditional optical fiber ribbons in known splice trays can cause issues. For example, due to the preferential bend of traditional optical fiber ribbons, coiling of such ribbons is very difficult. Traditional “figure 8” style routes in known splice trays can thus cause twisting and attenuation of such ribbon.
Accordingly, splice trays which can provide improved routing for traditional optical fiber ribbons would be advantageous. Further, splice trays which can accommodate and provide routing for both traditional and non-traditional optical fiber ribbons, such as intermittently bonded optical fiber ribbons, while also allowing splicing of non-ribbonized optical fibers, would be advantageous.
Additionally, in many cases, a significant number of splice trays are provided at the same location, such as in a cabinet, to enable the splicing together of a significant number of optical fibers from one or more fiber optic cables. In the datacenters and other environments in which such cabinets are provided, space is at a premium and the number of splice connections that are necessary is constantly increasing. Additionally, in some situations, multiple cabinets may be required to accommodate the access of multiple ‘service providers’ to customers at a certain location, i.e. in a building. Accordingly, improved cabinets which include features for improved routing and organization of cables to be spliced as well as improved space usage would be advantageous.